Death on the Air

by Ngaio Marsh

  Anthony Gill said: ‘This play – was it—?’

  ‘Yes. There was an extraordinary similarity between your play and his. I saw at once that Ben’s central scene would enormously strengthen your piece. Cann didn’t want me to give it to you. Barry knew. He said: “Why not?”’ He wanted Cann’s part and was furious when he didn’t get it. So you see, when he suggested you should dress and make-up like Ben—’ She turned to Alleyn. ‘You see?’

  ‘What did Cumberland do when he saw you?’ Alleyn asked Mike.

  ‘He made a queer movement with his hands as if – well, as if he expected me to go for him. Then he just bolted into his room.’

  ‘He thought Ben had come back,’ she said.

  ‘Were you alone at any time after you fainted?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘I? No. No, I wasn’t. Katie took me into my dressing room and stayed with me until I went on for the last scene.’

  ‘One other question. Can you, by any chance, remember if the heater in your room behaved at all oddly?’

  She looked wearily at him. ‘Yes, it did give a sort of plop, I think. It made me jump. I was nervy.’

  ‘You went straight from your room to the stage?’

  ‘Yes. With Katie. I wanted to go to Gann. I tried the door when we came out. It was locked. He said: “Don’t come in.” I said: “It’s all right. It wasn’t Ben,” and went on to the stage.’

  ‘I heard Miss Bourne,’ Mike said.

  ‘He must have made up his mind by then. He was terribly drunk when he played his last scene.’ She pushed her hair back from her forehead. ‘May I go?’ she asked Alleyn.

  ‘I’ve sent for a taxi. Mr Gill, will you see if it’s there? In the meantime, Miss Bourne, would you like to wait in the foyer?’

  ‘May I take Katie home with me?’

  ‘Certainly. Thompson will find her. Is there anyone else we can get?’

  ‘No, thank you. Just old Katie.’

  Alleyn opened the door for her and watched her walk into the foyer. ‘Check up with the dresser, Thompson,’ he murmured, ‘and get Mr H J Bannington.’

  He saw Coralie Bourne sit on the lower step of the dress circle stairway and lean her head against the wall. Nearby, on a gilt easel, a huge photograph of Canning Cumberland smiled handsomely at her.

  H J Bannington looked pretty ghastly. He had rubbed his hand across his face and smeared his makeup. Florid red paint from his lips had stained the crepe hair that had been gummed on and shaped into a beard. His monocle was still in his left eye and gave him an extraordinarily rakish look. ‘See here,’ he complained, ‘I’ve about had this party. When do we go home?’

  Alleyn uttered placatory phrases and got him to sit down. He checked over HJ’s movements after Cumberland left the stage and found that his account tallied with Mike’s. He asked if HJ had visited any of the other dressing rooms and was told acidly that HJ knew his place in the company. ‘I remained in my unheated and squalid kennel, thank you very much.’

  ‘Do you know if Mr Barry George followed your example?’

  ‘Couldn’t say, old boy. He didn’t come near me.’

  ‘Have you any theories at all about this unhappy business, Mr Bannington?’

  ‘Do you mean, why did Cann do it? Well, speak no ill of the dead, but I’d have thought it was pretty obvious he was morbid-drunk. Tight as an owl when we finished the second act. Ask the great Mr Barry George. Cann took the big scene away from Barry with both hands and left him looking pathetic. All wrong artistically, but that’s how Cann was in his cups.’ HJ’s wicked little eyes narrowed. ‘The great Mr George,’ he said, ‘must be feeling very unpleasant by now. You might say he’d got a suicide on his mind, mightn’t you? Or don’t you know about that?’

  ‘It was not suicide.’

  The glass dropped from HJ’s eye. ‘God,’ he said. ‘God. I told Bob Reynolds! I told him the whole plant wanted overhauling.’

  ‘The gas plant, you mean?’

  ‘Certainly. I was in the gas business years ago. Might say I’m in it still with a difference, ha-ha!’

  ‘Ha-ha!’ Alleyn agreed politely. He leaned forward. ‘Look here,’ he said: ‘We can’t dig up a gas man at this time of night and may very likely need an expert opinion. You can help us.’

  ‘Well, old boy, I was rather pining for a spot of shut-eye. But, of course—’

  ‘I shan’t keep you very long.’

  ‘God, I hope not!’ said HJ earnestly.

  Barry George had been made up pale for the last act. Colourless lips and shadows under his cheek bones and eyes had skilfully underlined his character as a repatriated but broken prisoner-of-war. Now, in the glare of the office lamp, he looked like a grossly exaggerated figure of mourning. He began at once to tell Alleyn how grieved and horrified he was. Everybody, he said, had their faults, and poor old Gann was no exception but wasn’t it terrible to think what could happen to a man who let himself go downhill? He, Barry George, was abnormally sensitive and he didn’t think he’d ever really get over the awful shock this had been to him. What, he wondered, could be at the bottom of it? Why had poor old Cann decided to end it all?

  ‘Miss Bourne’s theory,’ Alleyn began. Mr George laughed. ‘Coralie?’ he said. ‘So she’s got a theory! Oh, well. Never mind.’

  ‘Her theory is this. Cumberland saw a man whom he mistook for her husband and, having a morbid dread of his return, drank the greater part of a bottle of whisky and gassed himself. The clothes and beard that deceived him had, I understand, been ordered by you for Mr Anthony Gill.’

  This statement produced startling results. Barry George broke into a spate of expostulation and apology. There had been no thought in his mind of resurrecting poor old Ben, who was no doubt dead but had been, mind you, in many ways one of the best. They were all to go to the Ball as exaggerated characters from melodrama. Not for the world – he gesticulated and protested. A line of sweat broke out along the margin of his hair. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ he shouted. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m suggesting, among other things, that Cumberland was murdered.’

  ‘You’re mad! He’d locked himself in. They had to break down the door. There’s no window. You’re crazy!’

  ‘Don’t,’ Alleyn said wearily, ‘let us have any nonsense about sealed rooms. Now, Mr George, you knew Benjamin Vlasnoff pretty well. Are you going to tell us that when you suggested Mr Gill should wear a coat with a fur collar, a black sombrero, black gloves and a red beard, it never occurred to you that his appearance might be a shock to Miss Bourne and to Cumberland?’

  ‘I wasn’t the only one,’ he blustered. ‘HJ knew. And if it had scared him off, she wouldn’t have been so sorry. She’d had about enough of him. Anyway if this is murder, the costume’s got nothing to do with it.’

  ‘That,’ Alleyn said, getting up, ‘is what we hope to find out.’

  In Barry George’s room, Detective Sergeant Bailey, a fingerprint expert, stood by the gas heater. Sergeant Gibson, a police photographer, and a uniformed constable were near the door. In the centre of the room stood Barry George, looking from one man to another and picking at his lips.

  ‘I don’t know why he wants me to watch all this,’ he said. ‘I’m exhausted. I’m emotionally used up. What’s he doing? Where is he?’

  Alleyn was next door in Cumberland’s dressing room, with HJ, Mike and Sergeant Thompson. It was pretty clear now of fumes and the gas fire was burning comfortably. Sergeant Thompson sprawled in the armchair near the heater, his head sunk and his eyes shut.

  ‘This is the theory, Mr Bannington,’. Alleyn said. ‘You and Cumberland have made your final exits; Miss Bourne and Mr George and Miss Gay are all on the stage. Lord Michael is standing just outside the entrance to the passage. The dressers and stage staff are watching the play from the side. Cumberland has locked himself in this room. There he is, dead drunk and sound asleep. The gas fire is burning, full pressure. Earlier in the evening he powdered himself and a
thick layer of the powder lies undisturbed on the tap. Now.’

  He tapped on the wall.

  The fire blew out with a sharp explosion. This was followed by the hiss of escaping gas. Alleyn turned the taps off. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I’ve left an excellent print on the powdered surface. Now, come next door.’

  Next door, Barry George appealed to him stammering: ‘But I didn’t know. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know.’

  ‘Just show Mr Bannington, will you, Bailey?’

  Bailey knelt down. The lead-in was disconnected from the tap on the heater. He turned on the tap in the pipe and blew down the tube.

  ‘An air lock, you see. It works perfectly.’

  HJ was staring at Barry George. ‘But I don’t know about gas, HJ, HJ, tell them—’

  ‘One moment.’ Alleyn removed the towels that had been spread over the dressing shelf, revealing a sheet of clean paper on which lay the rubber push-on connection.

  ‘Will you take this lens, Bannington, and look at it. You’ll see that it’s stained a florid red. It’s a very slight stain but it’s unmistakably greasepaint. And just above the stain you’ll see a wiry hair. Rather like some sort of packing material, but it’s not that. It’s crepe hair, isn’t it?’

  The lens wavered above the paper.

  ‘Let me hold it for you,’ Alleyn said. He put his hand over HJ’s shoulder and, with a swift movement, plucked a tuft from his false moustache and dropped it on the paper. ‘Identical, you see, ginger. It seems to be stuck to the connection with spirit gum.’

  The lens fell. HJ twisted round, faced Alleyn for a second, and then struck him full in the face. He was a small man but it took three of them to hold him.

  ‘In a way, sir, it’s handy when they have a smack at you,’ said Detective Sergeant Thompson half an hour later. ‘You can pull them in nice and straightforward without any “will you come to the station and make a statement” business.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Alleyn, nursing his jaw.

  Mike said: ‘He must have gone to the room after Barry George and Miss Bourne were called.’

  ‘That’s it. He had to be quick. The call boy would be round in a minute and he had to be back in his own room.’

  ‘But look here – what about motive?’

  ‘That, my good Mike, is precisely why, at half past one in the morning, we’re still in this miserable theatre. You’re getting a view of the duller aspect of homicide. Want to go home?’

  ‘No. Give me another job.’

  ‘Very well. About ten feet from the prompt entrance, there’s a sort of garbage tin. Go through it.’

  At seventeen minutes to two, when the dressing rooms and passage had been combed clean and Alleyn had called a spell, Mike came to him with filthy hands. ‘Eureka,’ he said, ‘I hope.’

  They all went into Bannington’s room. Alleyn spread out on the dressing table the fragments of paper that Mike had given him.

  ‘They’d been pushed down to the bottom of the tin,’ Mike said.

  Alleyn moved the fragments about. Thompson whistled through his teeth. Bailey and Gibson mumbled together.

  ‘There you are,’ Alleyn said at last.

  They collected round him. The letter that HJ Bannington had opened at this same table six hours and forty five minutes earlier, was pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle.

  Dear HJ,

  Having seen the monthly statement of my account, I called at my bank this morning and was shown a cheque that is undoubtedly a forgery. Your histrionic versatility, my dear HJ, is only equalled by your audacity as a calligraphist. But fame has its disadvantages. The teller has recognized you. I propose to take action.

  ‘Unsigned,’ said Bailey.

  ‘Look at the card on the red roses in Miss Bourne’s room signed CC. It’s a very distinctive hand.’ Alleyn turned to Mike. ‘Do you still want to be a policeman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lord help you. Come and talk to me at the office tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  They went out, leaving a constable on duty. It was a cold morning. Mike looked up at the façade of the Jupiter. He could just make out the shape of the neon sign: I CAN FIND MY WAY OUT by Anthony Gill.

  CHAPTER AND VERSE: THE LITTLE COPPLESTONE MYSTERY

  Chapter and Verse was first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (USA) in 1973

  When the telephone rang, Troy came in, sun-dazzled, from the cottage garden to answer it, hoping it would be a call from London.

  ‘Oh,’ said a strange voice uncertainly. ‘May I speak to Superintendent Alleyn, if you please?’

  ‘I’m sorry. He’s away.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said the voice, crestfallen. ‘Er – would that be – am I speaking to Mrs Alleyn?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Well, it’s Timothy Bates here, Mrs Alleyn. You don’t know me,’ the voice confessed wistfully, ‘but I had the pleasure several years ago of meeting your husband. In New Zealand. And he did say that if I ever came home I was to get in touch, and when I heard quite by accident that you were here – well, I was excited. But, alas, no good after all.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Troy said. ‘He’ll be back, I hope, on Sunday night. Perhaps—’

  ‘Will he! Come, that’s something! Because here I am at the Star and Garter, you see, and so—’ The voice trailed away again.

  ‘Yes, indeed. He’ll be delighted,’ Troy said, hoping that he would.

  ‘I’m a bookman,’ the voice confided. ‘Old books, you know. He used to come into my shop. It was always such a pleasure.’

  ‘But, of course!’ Troy exclaimed. ‘I remember perfectly now. He’s often talked about it.’

  ‘Has he? Has he, really! Well, you see, Mrs Alleyn, I’m here on business. Not to sell anything, please don’t think that, but on a voyage of discovery; almost, one might say, of detection, and I think it might amuse him. He has such an eye for the curious. Not,’ the voice hurriedly amended, ‘in the trade sense, I mean curious in the sense of mysterious and unusual. But I mustn’t bore you.’

  Troy assured him that he was not boring her and indeed it was true. The voice was so much coloured by odd little overtones that she found herself quite drawn to its owner. ‘I know where you are,’ he was saying. ‘Your house was pointed out to me.’

  After that there was nothing to do but ask him to visit. He seemed to cheer up prodigiously. ‘May I? May I, really? Now?’

  ‘Why not?’ Troy said. ‘You’ll be here in five minutes.’

  She heard a little crow of delight before he hung up the receiver.

  He turned out to be exactly like his voice – a short, middle-aged, bespectacled man, rather untidily dressed. As he came up the path she saw that with both arms he clutched to his stomach an enormous Bible. He was thrown into a fever over the difficulty of removing his cap.

  ‘How ridiculous!’ he exclaimed. ‘Forgive me! One moment.’

  He laid his burden tenderly on a garden seat. ‘There!’ he cried. ‘Now! How do you do!’

  Troy took him indoors and gave him a drink. He chose sherry and sat in the window seat with his Bible beside him. ‘You’ll wonder,’ he said, ‘why I’ve appeared with this unusual piece of baggage. I do trust it arouses your curiosity.’

  He went into a long excitable explanation. It appeared that the Bible was an old and rare one that he had picked up in a job lot of books in New Zealand. All this time he kept it under his square little hands as if it might open of its own accord and spoil his story.

  ‘Because,’ he said, ‘the really exciting thing to me is not its undoubted authenticity but—’ He made a conspiratorial face at Troy and suddenly opened the Bible. ‘Look!’ he invited.

  He displayed the flyleaf. Troy saw that it was almost filled with entries in a minute, faded copperplate handwriting.

  ‘The top,’ Mr Bates cried. ‘Top left-hand. Look at that.’

  Troy read: ‘Crabtree Farm at Little Copplestone in the C
ounty of Kent. Why, it comes from our village!’

  ‘Ah, ha! So it does. Now, the entries, my dear Mrs Alleyn. The entries.’

  They were the recorded births and deaths of a family named Wagstaff, beginning in 1705 and ending in 1870 with the birth of William James Wagstaff. Here they broke off but were followed by three further entries, close together.

  Stewart Shakespeare Hadet. Died: Tuesday, 5th April, 1779. 2nd Samuel 1.10.

  Naomi Balbus Hadet. Died: Saturday, 13th August, 1779. Jeremiah 50.24.

  Peter Rook Hadet. Died: Monday, 12th September, 1779. Ezekiel 7.6.

  Troy looked up to find Mr Bates’s gaze fixed on her. ‘And what,’ Mr Bates asked, ‘my dear Mrs Alleyn, do you make of that?’

  ‘Well,’ she said cautiously, ‘I know about Crabtree Farm. There’s the farm itself, owned by Mr De’ath, and there’s Crabtree House, belonging to Miss Hart, and – yes, I fancy I’ve heard they both belonged originally to a family named Wagstaff.’

  ‘You are perfectly right. Now! What about the Hadets? What about them?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a family named Hadet in Little Copplestone. But—’

  ‘Of course you haven’t. For the very good reason that there never have been any Hadets in Little Copplestone.’

  ‘Perhaps in New Zealand, then?’

  ‘The dates, my dear Mrs Alleyn, the dates! New Zealand was not colonized in 1779. Look closer. Do you see the sequence of double dots – ditto marks – under the address? Meaning, of course, “also of Crabtree Farm at Little Copplestone in the County of Kent”.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Of course you do. And how right you are. Now! You have noticed that throughout there are biblical references. For the Wagstaffs they are the usual pious offerings. You need not trouble yourself with them. But consult the text awarded to the three Hadets. Just you look them up! I’ve put markers.’